#BookReview #BlogTour : A Brush With Death (The Nosey Parker Mysteries #2) by Fiona Leitch @rararesources @fkleitch @0neMoreChapter_ / / delightful, enjoyable, and delicious cozy mystery

Hello Readers! Today I’m sharing my review of A Brush With Death as a part of blog tour for Nosey Parker Cozy Mystery series by Fiona Leitch, organized by  Rachel’s Random Resources. Please check out the book details and my review in this post. Many thanks to Rachel for tour invite and author and publisher for providing e-ARC of this book via NetGalley.

Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker is back!

When a body turned up at her last catering gig it certainly put people off the hor d’oeuvres. So with a reputation to salvage, Jodie’s determined that her next job for the village’s festival will go without a hitch.

But when chaos breaks out, Jodie Parker somehow always finds herself in the picture.

The body of a writer from the festival is discovered at the bottom of a cliff, and the prime suspect is the guest of honour, the esteemed painter Duncan Stovall. With her background in the Met police, Jodie has got solving cases down to a fine art and she knows things are rarely as they seem.

Can she find the killer before the village faces another brush with death?

The second book in the Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker cosy mystery series. Can be read as a standalone. A humorous cosy mystery with a British female sleuth in a small village. Includes one of Jodie’s Tried and Tested Recipes! Written in British English. Mild profanity and peril.

Previous Book in Series:

Murder on the Menu

A Brush With Death interesting sequel to Murder on the Menu. It revolved around Jodie’s life and her being Nosey but this time with approval of DCI as a civilian sidekick in solving the murder case of writer from the Penstowan festival. It was about lies, illegal shady business, complicated life and relationship, friendship, and family.

Writing was entertaining, beautiful, and steady paced, first person narrative from Jodie’s POV. Her voice, like first book, was refreshing and witty. Setting of Penstowan in the festival season added its own charm to story. There were enough details to read this book as standalone but I recommend to read this in order as first book gave good introduction to characters and even the Cornish town.

It started a bit slow with Jodie preparing for opening party of town festival and crossing her fingers this didn’t turn out with dead body to be found like her previous catering job. And her prayers were heard murder didn’t happen within first few chapters but she found herself attracted to one of the guests of honour- esteemed and very handsome painter, Duncan Stovall. When dead writer came for festival events found dead near the cliff of her attractive guest of honour’s cottage, she had to find out what exactly happened and who killed the writer, mostly to clear the name of her handsome painter.

It was interesting to read how this new love interest was going to turn out, how many complications it was going to get in Jodie’s life, who pushed the author down to cliff and why. Though the starting was slow, first few chapter was great built up for story. The person I guessed would be dead wasn’t the one found dead which picked my interest and I was hooked to story from that point.

All old characters were fantastic. I loved Shirley (Jodie’s mom) more. She was fun more than her daughter this time and I loved her advice. I definitely think Jodie should have listened to it and should not have gone for tingles. I’m still laughing at that cabbage reference. Debbie was breath of fresh air and I enjoyed her enthusiasm and hunger for gossip and those looks she gave to Jodie whenever her many love interests showed their affection, but mostly I loved her for being loyal and supportive friend. Tony was utterly charming and lovely and he won my heart when he bid for painting but I don’t know why he too was among love interests!! If I’m not wrong didn’t Jodie thought he was like cousin to her when she was playing Fu with her daughter and mother in last book?? I hope he stays best friend in future books but whatever Jodie and author decide I sure love him.

DCI Withers (Nathan) was amazing detective. I felt bit sad for him but like Jodie said apart from chemistry during the investigation of previous case, there wasn’t much signal from his part. I hope that changes in next books. You must know I’m team Withers. Anyway, he was great throughout the book. I liked how he let her on the case as unofficial civilian consultant. He and Jodie definitely made great team. They both were becoming great friends.

Duncan was good person but I couldn’t see him with Jodie from the beginning, not just because he was married but I could feel something was off, he was hiding something and I wasn’t wrong there. It was easy to guess after Jodie and Withers’ road trip but I didn’t know full story of him until climax.

Jodie was her usual self, fun, entertaining and witty but this time she was a bit lost in her complicated many relationships. I liked her monologues. They made me root for her and even though I didn’t approve her choice I still wanted to support her like her friends. It definitely can be hard and lonely life at her age without companion and I could see her dilemma looking at those three very charming and lovely men in her life. She was great when it came to trying to solve case. She didn’t hesitate confronting Duncan more than once and didn’t rule him out until she could prove it. I admired her for keeping open mind with both case and her relationship.

Twist and turns were good. The case was complex like first book. I couldn’t see many turns coming but as I said I was right about Duncan hiding something and I could guess who might be murderer at the same time but couldn’t figure out why and yet author surprised me with twist and making me partially wrong in guessing game. Climax was tense with Duncan’s story and everything making clear picture but still not enough evidence made it even more interesting to see how they were going to get that evidence and warrant and then came surprising twist. End was lovely, sad and perfect all at same time. I loved recipe at the end.

Why 4 stars-

I didn’t like all the complicated relationships and there was not just two but three potential love interest. All these complications made it less humorous than first book and it wasn’t as gripping in the start and at few points.

Overall, A Brush With Death was delightful, enjoyable, and delicious cozy mystery with lovely characters and beautiful setting.

Purchase Links:

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brush-Death-Nosey-Parker-Mystery-ebook/dp/B08CTX44K5

US – https://www.amazon.com/Brush-Death-Nosey-Parker-Mystery-ebook/dp/B08CTX44K5

Affiliate Link-

About Author:

Fiona Leitch is a writer with a chequered past. She’s written for football and motoring magazines, DJ’ed at illegal raves and is a stalwart of the low budget TV commercial, even appearing as the Australasian face of a cleaning product called ‘Sod Off’. Her debut novel ‘Dead in Venice’ was published by Audible in 2018 as one of their Crime Grant finalists. After living in London, Hastings and Cornwall she’s finally settled in sunny New Zealand, where she enjoys scaring her cats by trying out dialogue on them. She spends her days dreaming of retiring to a crumbling Venetian palazzo, walking on the windswept beaches of West Auckland, and writing funny, flawed but awesome female characters.

Social Media Links – Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

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